Fields of Gold
by anicol
Summary: A biographical sketch of Uchiha Mikoto, set in seven episodes from childhood to death. Bittersweet.


_Author's Note: A biographical sketch of Uchiha Mikoto, set in seven episodes from childhood to death. The title is derived from Eva Cassidy's ballad "Fields of Gold." _

_Uchiha Mikoto, and portions of her biography, belong to Kishimoto-san. The remainder of her backstory was filled in courtesy of moi._

* * *

Mikoto is nine. Almost ten and tall for her age, with a plain but sweet face and twin braids of raven hair that match her dark, dark eyes. Her knees are knobbly and her elbows are perpetually scraped because she has no scruples about climbing trees with the field hands. Or playing hide and seek in the dark. Or even swimming naked in the Nakano River. The current tugs gently at her ankles, and when she dives beneath the cool surface, little silver fish push through the swirling curtain of her hair.

Her mother clucks her tongue and tells Mikoto mournfully that if she doesn't learn how to act like a proper lady she'll never marry. Why can't she be more like Kiyoko, she asks in desperation as she pulls straw splinters from the brown, calloused pads of Mikoto's feet. Mikoto just laughs, the sound of bright silver bells burbling forth to color the sunshine. Laughing child, her father calls her, born in summer - too free-spirited to sit seiza on the tatami and practice tea ceremony. Wait until she's older, he tells his wife. A flower cannot be forced to bloom.

So Mikoto dances barefoot in a field of sunflowers, the loose ties of her pinafore drifting on a warm afternoon breeze. She turns in circles with arms outstretched and laughs at the blue, blue sky.

* * *

Mikoto is thirteen. Almost fourteen and still tall, but not nearly so plain as she tiptoes round the fragile petals of adolescence. Young men have begun visiting the house, suitors for her older sister, whose beauty grows legendary with the passage of every month. Mikoto wears kimono and kneels to pour tea as her father discusses marriage proposals with the local gentry, politics and covert pacts mingling in the air with the sweet scent of her mother's spice cakes.

At night, she practices archery by moonlight. The arrows whistle softly in the darkness and always, always hit their mark. The bow string chaffes her fingers, and the feathers that crown her quiver tickle her cheek, and Mikoto finds a new form of prayer as she lets her arrows fly.

And then the day comes when an envoy of powerful men, with paper fans emblazoned on the cloth of their backs and dark, dark eyes like Mikoto's, visits her family's country estate. They bow to her father and present their propositions, and her father bows back. Mikoto watches as Kiyoko's engagement is signed, stamped and sealed. Her mother strokes Mikoto's hair and whispers tenderly that it will not be long before she, too, shall be wed, fates willing to a man from such a noble family as this. But Mikoto sees these are men of fire and men of war. She has no desire to seal her fate so soon.

That night she excuses herself early from the celebratory dinner, and takes her bow to the fields. There is no moon to see by, and this time her arrows fly blindly.

* * *

Mikoto is seventeen. Almost eighteen and, though not as beautiful as Kiyoko, she is beautiful nonetheless. Young men have begun taking notice, but Mikoto has eyes for only one. He is taller than her and older than her and trades in blood and bone, a life spun round the crimson eyes of his clan. But when he comes to visit, he is quiet and reserved and it is Mikoto who shows him how to laugh. They walk through the fields of sunflowers, fingers loosely twined, and talk of the future.

The day of their wedding there is snow on the ground. The air is crisp and cold, but the sun still shines, setting the stillness to sparkling. Mikoto wears a white kimono with a paper fan embroidered on the back. She wanted sunflowers at her wedding. The florist only scoffed - certainly she knew that sunflowers are out of season?

But that night, when she and Fugaku are alone, he presents her with an origami bouquet, crafted from the most delicate of paper and tied with a silky black ribbon. Mikoto takes the gift in slender hands, and then they solemnly undress each other, fingers tracing patterns over heated skin and sculpted muscle. When Fugaku presses his lips between her breasts, Mikoto arches into him with a breathless laugh. They make love slowly, tenderly, over and over until she falls asleep, tangled in the sheets and wrapped in the heavy warmth of Fugaku's arms.

In the morning, with the sun gilding the powdered rooftops, Mikoto kisses her husband goodbye and sends him off to war, the iron tang of blood on her tongue.

* * *

Mikoto is twenty-two. Twenty-two, sweaty and panting, the world having shrunk to only the heavy sound of her breathing and the unbearable pressure between her legs. She bows her chin to her chest, doubled over her swollen belly, and counts to three as pain lances up and outwards. From a seeming distance, the Uchiha midwife tells her to push, push just once more, and Mikoto arches her neck backwards and screams, a curse and a prayer all in one. And then the world expands abruptly and comes to a shuddering halt at the sound of a tiny, high-strung squall, the most beautiful sound Mikoto has ever heard.

The baby is perfect, with his father's face and her dark hair, soft fuzz that carpets the egg-shell curve of his skull. Fugaku takes his son with trembling hands, unsure how to hold such a fragile creation in hands that carve out death for a living. The midwife tells him that the birth was quick with very little blood. Mikoto looks at her infant son and thinks only of her sister - she was not so lucky.

For weeks Mikoto sleeps lightly, sliding out of the dream state at the barest whisper of sound from Itachi's nursery. She nurses him with the nervous diligence of new motherhood, seated in the oak rocking chair by the plate-glass window, tracing the slanted beams of sunlight that play across the polished floorboards. Fugaku rarely touches Itachi. Instead he watches from a distance, a small smile resting on his lips and an unfathomable look in his deep, deep eyes.

* * *

Mikoto is thirty. She's a wife and a mother now, watching as the seasons grow and die, one by one. Her life has taken on a comfortable rhythm, centered around her family and her home and the garden she tends with careful hands. Itachi is growing fast, a solemn boy who rarely smiles, and a shinobi prodigy, or so they tell her. He has his father's eyes.

Sasuke is sweeter. Lighter. She watches him toddle after Itachi on unsteady feet and thinks of how different he is from his big brother. How different her second pregnancy was, memories of months of morning sickness so intense she couldn't stomach much more than peanut butter, and the stormy night he was born, dry lightning splitting the thin air. Fugaku speaks of Itachi endlessly, but Mikoto knows the secret that lights his eyes when he watches Sasuke sleep. The little moments lie locked deep in her heart

In the afternoons, while Itachi is at school and Sasuke takes his nap, Mikoto kneels in her garden. The tidy plots overflow with flowering plants of all different kinds, but sunflowers remain her favorite. Every year she waits longingly for the sultry days of summer when they will lift their golden faces to the sun.

* * *

That summer the sunflowers forget to bloom.

And Mikoto stops counting her age. Instead she counts the growing length of Itachi's missions, his absent place at the dinner table like a great vacuum in her heart. Or the scorch marks that cover Sasuke's arms, the smell of ash perpetually lingering in his hair and on his clothes. She counts the spaces between her breaths as she lies awake at night, alone, waiting for Fugaku to come home. He makes no sound when he enters their bedroom and slides silently beneath the bed covers. A gulf of secrets stretches between them.

She tells him not to go through with it. Pleads with him to think of their family, of Sasuke, still so young. Begs him on bent knee with tears and white knuckled fingers. A mother's prayer, falling on deaf ears.

When they find Shisui's body, face down in the Nakano River, Mikoto sees the future.

So she's not surprised when one autumn evening Itachi's katana scythes through the Uchiha, spilling blood like dark ink across a piece of parchment. Fugaku grips her wrist and barricades them in their bedroom, screams echoing in her ears. She can feel the desperate flutter of his pulse, hear the rapid rush of his breath. This isn't what he wanted. This isn't what she wanted, either. Fugaku grabs her shoulders and crushes his lips against her's, a kiss drowned in the bitter salt-taste of sorrow. A final farewell. When they break apart, Mikoto watches silently as he slides a kunai from the recess of his sleeve, dull metal glinting in silver moonlight, and draws a single clean line across the shadow of his throat.

* * *

Itachi finds his mother kneeling in a pool of blood, Fugaku's head resting in her lap. Her eyes are dry; they shine with something more elusive than tears. When Itachi crouches in front of her, she offers him a smile from his childhood, boldly reaching out to caress the curve of his cheek with bloodstained fingers. Itachi folds one hand over her's and smiles back. It's sad and sweet and silent, a broken stained-glass window, a withered flower. And Mikoto understands. She gently brushes her lips against his forehead, then lifts her eyes, watching as black and red spin together like a monk's prayer wheel, hypnotizing and peaceful. Softly, ever so softly, she falls backwards into a field of sunflowers, the melodic chime of laughter rising on a breath of wind to the memory of a blue, blue sky.


End file.
